The Tissue Box of Love
by Unicorns.Bubbles.AWESOMENESS
Summary: Fang rarely expressed his emotions, and when he did, it was through his "Tissue Box of Love." When Max grabs a tissue from it, what feelings will it reveal?
1. Chapter 1

**The Tissue Box of Love**

The girl sniffled a little. Luckily for her, her boyfriend came to the rescue and offered her a tissue.

"Would you like a tissue?" he asked her.

She nodded and he pulled out a box of tissues. She grabbed one and opened it up, and then noticed that there was writing on it.

_I think you're pretty,_ it read.

She smiled and laughed a little, wiped up her nose, and said, "I think you're pretty hot yourself."

He gave her one of his rare grins and it lead to heated make-out session.

Lissa Thorne and Fang Ride. The ego-centric slut and the silent, thought-to-be emo, bad boy.

Max Martinez had no choice but to sit and watch, considering the two were sitting in front of her in class.

She caught her friend Iggy Ride's eye and made puking and gagging motions. He saw her and laughed.

"No PDA!" the teacher yelled to Fang and Lissa. "Mr. James, is there anything you'd like to share?"

Iggy's face grew red and he said, "No, sir, sorry."

Fang and Lissa groaned, pulling apart. Max let out a sigh of relief and Lissa turned around and attempted to glare at her. Keyword: attempted. Max wanted to slap her right then and there.

Fang and Max have a deep hatred for each other. Iggy and Fang are brothers. Iggy and Max are best friends. See how that all works out?

They used to be friends, the three of them. Fang left their little group (consisting of Max, Iggy and their other friends-Nudge, Ella, Angel, Gazzy and Ari) one day without a word. Then when someone from his new, popular group (consisting of Dylan, Sam, Lissa, Brigid, Maya, and Omega) would ask him why he'd always hang out with Max (they knew he and Iggy were brothers, so they didn't bother asking about him), he'd say that he'd felt sorry for her because she had no friends.

That struck Max real hard. She then developed a hatred for him, and he returned it.

And to think that Max used to have feelings for that _jerk_.

He'd hurt her.

Now she didn't know what to make of him.

* * *

Fang and Lissa had broken up in the beginning of the next year, when they were just seniors. Everybody thought that Lissa had cheated on Fang, but no one was exactly sure. Maybe they had found someone else.

_Who knows and who cares?_ Max thought.

She walked through the hallways to her next class, listening to all the rumors that were being told to each other.

"_Did you hear that Fang and Lissa broke up?'_

"_FANG'S FREE! EEEEP! DO YOU THINK HE'LL GO OUT WITH ME?" _

"_I heard that Fang had a girl in his mind."_

"_Lissa's got a new man."_

"_Fang told me he had someone in mind…."_

While Max was listening to all of these rumors, she bumped into a brick wall.

The brick wall was also known as Fang.

"Aren't you going to say sorry?" he asked her cockily.

"I'm really not sorry," she snarled at him.

"You have an attitude problem," he said bluntly.

"Look who's talking," she scoffed.

"You could be a bit nicer, you know, considering we used to be friends and all," he said, smirking.

That struck a chord in Max's heart.

"What. Did. You. Say?" she said venomously.

"I said, you could be nicer, considering we used to be friends and all," he said smugly.

Max felt tears bubbling up inside of her. She didn't trust herself to stay any longer and talk to this moron, so she just said, "Don't you dare _ever_ say the words 'we' and 'friends' in the same sentence," and then turned on her heel and walked swiftly away, and single tear rolling down her face.

* * *

Instead of going to class, Max headed out of the school and to the nearest park. She always found comfort on the benches. No one was there, which was good for her. It's less humiliation.

She brought her knees up and hugged them, letting her head drop and rest on them, tears slowly flowing out of her eyes.

"Would you like a tissue?" she heard a deep voice say.

She recognized the voice as Fang, and said, "Not from you."

"Why not?" he asked her.

"Because you're you," she grumbled, knowing that it didn't make any sense at all.

"Uh huh," he said slowly. He took a deep breath and said, "Max, I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

"You really can't say that," he pointed out. "Technically _I_ can only say if _I'm_ sorry or not, and I am."

"What do you want?" she growled.

"I wanna say I'm sorry."

"So you think you can just say you're sorry and everything will be back to normal?" she asked him incredulously.

"Take a tissue," he urged.

She looked up at him with tear-stained eyes at this abrupt change of conversation.

She looked at the tissue box he was holding and realized that it was his "Tissue Box of Love."

She put her head back down and said, "No thanks, I'm good."

"You know you need one," he pestered.

She muttered something incoherent and grabbed a tissue.

It read, _I'm so sorry for hurting you._

"No you're not," she said more firmly.

"Yeah, I am," he retorted. "Why can't you just accept that?"

"Because you're a jerk!" she lashed out. "You're Fang Ride, the school's cocky, arrogant heartthrob! You hurt me, so why should I believe you when you say you're sorry, huh? How do I know that this is not some sort of dare to get me laid or something?" she asked him outrageously.

"Okay, um, I'm not quite ready to go that far," he told her. "You want another tissue?" he asked her abruptly, but she'd been crying even harder after she'd lashed out at him, so he figured she'd need another one, and the next one would tell her why she should believe him.

She grabbed a tissue angrily and read it.

It said, _I still love you._

"Still?" she asked, wiping her eyes.

"I still love you," he repeated, "from 7th grade. When Dylan asked you out that year, I was jealous, and I'm sorry."

"That doesn't explain what you said about me," she said hotly.

"About how you had no friends?" he confirmed, and she nodded.

"It was a way for me to prevent Dylan from asking you out."

"So you portrayed me as a _loser_?" she asked harshly.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking down. "Listen, I'm sorry I was wasting your time. I'm just gonna go now-"

She cut him off and grabbed the tissue box from him.

She opened up a clean one, with no writing on it, grabbed a marker from her pencil bag that she had brought with her from school, and wrote, _I still love you too._

Fang couldn't see what she had written, so after she had folded the tissue back up and stuck it in the box, Fang pulled it out and read it, a small smile forming on his face.

"Still?" he inquired.

"Still," she confirmed, and he captured her mouth with his.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It doesn't matter now," she said, biting her lip.

Before she could say anything else, he kissed her again, and said, "I love you."

"I love you too."

* * *

**Voila! 'Tis finished!**

**There's a little Faxy one-shot for ya.**

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**~UnicornsBubblesAWESOMENESS**


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you seeing someone else?" Max screamed at Fang, hurt by seeing him talking intimately with another woman.

"No, of course not!" he desperately tried to explain.

Max and Fang had been going out for 4 years now, and things were going great, until now.

"Then explain why you're never home anymore, why you're looking through all of my personal things, and why you're going around talking about personal things with other women!"

Max herself thought she'd been acting like a jealous girlfriend, which was true, but didn't want to admit it to herself, or even less Fang, for that matter.

Other than this recent incident with Fang talking to another woman, she had also caught Fang looking through her phone- her contacts list specifically- and she felt as if he were never home anymore.

The two resided in an apartment (one apartment, not two separate ones) in upstate New York, and the two had even gotten themselves jobs and all. They went to the same college -so they could be together.

In the past three months or so, Fang hadn't come home earlier than about 11 at night, and it scared Max. He'd make up some excuse about having work, but she knew it wasn't that, and it was seriously freaking her out.

Max and Fang had already talked about this recurring issue many, many times, but this time, Max was convinced that Fang was cheating on her.

"You know what, Fang? I don't want to hear it," she yelled at him, clearly agitated and frustrated. She grabbed her purse, cell phone, keys, and left the apartment, leaving Fang guilty for not tell her what he was actually planning.

* * *

Max headed to the bar about 10 minutes away from the apartments, where Iggy and Gazzy worked. She needed a drink, badly.

It'd been forever since she'd seen the two of them. It'd been forever since she'd seen Ari, her own sibling, and Ella and Nudge, some of her closest friends. To Max, forever meant at least 3 months. She still kept in touch with them through phone, but never actually found time to meet up with them.

She pulled up in the parking lot, got out, and headed into the bar.

"WOOO! There she is, everybody! The great Maximum Martinez!" Iggy screamed as soon as she entered.

"Shut up, Igs," she mumbled, and found a seat to sit down in: right in front of Iggy while he was making the drinks. She really needed someone to talk to.

"What's wrong, Maxie?" he asked her after noticing how sad, tired, and angry she was.

She thought about it for a second, considering whether or not she should tell him. She decided to tell him anyways, whether he cared or not, and said, "I honestly don't know anymore, Igs."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked bluntly.

She sighed deeply and said, "I think I'm going to break up with Fang."

The two hadn't clearly broken up _already_, they just had a disagreement; at least, that's how it was through Max's eyes.

"And why's that?" he asked slowly, this time looking her straight in the eye, setting down the drink he was making.

"I don't know," she grumbled. "He's never home anymore, he's looking through my personal stuff, and I always catch him talking to other women really closely and quietly and everything," she groaned. She propped up her elbows on the counter and buried her head in her hands, rubbing her temples furiously.

"I don't think that breaking up with him is going to help," Iggy said unsurely. "You need him and he needs you. Just like Ella and I," he grinned.

Recently, Ella and Iggy had hooked up, and they were doing better than everyone (their friend circle, at least) thought they would. They've been going strong for about half a year.

"Max," he said, catching her attention, "have you tried _talking_ to him? I mean, rather than just yelling at him?"

She thought about. She thought about it for so long that Iggy was able to serve at least 5 drinks. "W-Well, of course," she tried.

"So you haven't?" Iggy asked.

She shook her head sullenly. "I tried to, but he'd give me some excuse that I really don't believe because it's probably not true, and then we'd end up yelling at each other. Or, I'd mostly end up yelling at him."

Iggy nodded, slowly processing all of this information. "Have you thought that maybe he just needs a break? Like a guys' night out or something?"

"He's come home no earlier than 11 at night for _three months_, Igs," she pointed out.

"Hm," he pondered.

Iggy and Max sat (or in Iggy's case, stood) in silence for a while until Iggy was called for duty.

"You know what, Max? There's a reason for everything he does, okay? Gimme a couple of days to think about it, alright?" Iggy told Max.

"Sounds good, Igs," Max said, standing up.

"Wait!" Iggy said frantically. "Don't leave! Have a drink! All you did was sit here and talk to me! That defeats the purpose of even coming here!"

"Sorry Igs," she said reluctantly. "I gotta go." She checked her watch and thanked Iggy multiple times, and then took her leave.

Gazzy came up to Iggy and asked, "Do you think she'll ever find out on her own?"

"I dunno, man. I dunno."

* * *

"Max, please come back. I love you. Call me back when you get this message."

Fang had left at least 15 messages much like this one on Max's cell phone, hoping for her to come back.

Max eventually did come home to the apartment, but it was very, very late. Fang figured she'd paid Nudge, Ella, Angel, Iggy, Gazzy and even Ari a visit during these late hours of the day.

Fang was lounging on the couch when Max came home. She shot him a glare, set down her purse somewhere in the living room, and headed for the bedroom. When she came back out, she grabbed some food, and sat down on the other couch (not the one that Fang was sitting on).

"Max, I'm sorry," Fang finally said, breaking the ice.

She looked at him with saddened eyes and said, "I don't think I can accept that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not enough," she said firmly. With this being said, she dumped her bowl in the sink, muttering something along the lines that she wasn't hungry anymore, and went back into the bedroom.

Fang groaned, but not too loudly, so Max wouldn't hear him.

He called up Iggy.

"_Hello?" _Iggy said in a funny voice.

"Hey man," Fang grumbled.

There was a slight pause, and then Iggy said, _"How's she doing?"_ Fang didn't need to be told twice who "she" was.

"Still not accepting my apologies," he muttered to Iggy. "She's clueless, man."

"_I think it's time for you to use that old 'tissue box of love' again. You remember that?" _Iggy suggested.

Fang pondered on that, and finally said, "That's a good idea. Thanks, Igs."

"_No problem, man. You do whatcha gotta do, man."_

"Alright, thanks. See you later."

* * *

The next morning, Fang went into his closet and pulled out his dusty old tissue box. He really didn't want to get a new one and decorate _that_, so he'd just pulled out the one he'd used 4 years ago. He dusted it off and replaced the tissues.

Max, all the while, was getting ready to head to work.

When she saw Fang in the closet, she asked, "What are you doing in there?" rather harshly.

Fang pretended to still rummage through the closet, so she wouldn't have to see him bring out the 'old memories.'

"Nothing," was Fang's meek reply.

She quirked an eyebrow, but didn't question anything any farther. "Well, I'm going to work. Bye."

"Bye," Fang mumbled, still pretending to rummage through the closet.

After Max left, Fang plotted and planned. Max worked at a pretty prestigious place (so does Fang, but that's irrelevant) so if Fang were to go through with his "final plan" that he thought of to win Max back, she would be pissed for the sake of her job, but her boss is a softy, so she wouldn't get fired or anything for what he was going to do.

_This is going to be great, _Fang thought to himself giddily, adding his finishing touches to his "plan."

* * *

About an hour later, Fang arrived at Max's office.

"Hey Fang," a girl swooned.

"Hey Fang," another one said, catching his attention. "Call me," she mouthed, making hand signals and winking.

"Nah," he told all the girls that were sighing dreamily. "I already got someone."

Max looked up from her cubicle to see Fang looking down at her, smiling widely, and all the girls in the office glaring at her.

"What do you want now?" Max groaned. "I already told you -sorry won't cut it."

"I know," he said to her, still grinning.

"So what is it that you want?"

"Take a tissue," he urged suddenly. "I brought them over because I know you have allergies," he said, making it up as he talked.

Max started to say that she didn't really have allergies and that he should know this by now, but Fang shot her a look as if to say "Go along with it."

So she ended up taking a tissue, gasping slightly at the memories the tissue box held. "You kept it?" she whispered to him, and he nodded.

She grabbed a tissue and unfolded it.

It read: _Max, I am so, so sorry._

"Fang," she said, sighing heavily, "we already went over this. I'm not going to accept it this time."

"Take another one," he whispered.

She muttered something incoherent and grabbed another one.

It said: _I love you so much._

"Really?" Max asked. She smiled a little, and then whispered, "Then why won't you tell me why you're acting so…weird?"

He silently pushed the tissue box closer to her, urging her to take another. She sighed, and read it.

_I would like to explain why _I've_ done the things you've pointed out:_

That was all written on only one tissue, so it indicated for her to grab the next couple.

_I'm never home anymore because I'm looking for the perfect one._

"Perfect one?" she asked him. He didn't answer and she went ahead and grabbed the next one.

_I looked through your personal things because I wanted to ask your parents for their blessing._

By now, Max was getting where Fang was going at.

_I was talking with other women because I'm asking them for help on how to find the perfect ring._

"Ring?" Max whispered, tears brimming in her eyes.

She used the last tissue to wipe up her eyes, and grabbed the next one.

_I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, Max. _

She let a couple of tears drop, knowing she had misunderstood Fang.

The last one read: _Maximum Ride, will you marry me?_

Max looked at Fang with watery eyes, and by now, he was on one knee, holding an opened box with a beautiful ring inside of it.

"Oh my god," she said, crying now. "I'm so sorry!" she burst out. She used up all of the tissues that Fang had written on. Fang knew her too well, meaning it was a good thing he had brought tissues.

Fang stood up, confused. _Did she not want to marry me? _he thought dejectedly to himself.

Fang silently closed the box, grabbed his tissue box, and started to walk away, but Max called out, "Wait! Fang! Where are you going?"

"I thought you didn't wanna marry me," he mumbled, taking a step closer to her.

"Why in the world would you think that?" she sobbed.

"'Cause you said sorry…" he trailed off." I thought you said sorry because there was another guy or you didn't wanna marry me or something…"

Max cried even harder, for he misunderstanding her and for earlier, when she misunderstood him. Fang started to turn away, and she said, "I'm so sorry for misunderstanding you!"

Fang stopped in his tracks. "Of course I'll marry you! I love you!" Max cried a little more, using a couple of more tissues.

Everybody in the office "Awww-ed," except for, you know, the crazy girls that were still madly in love with Fang even though they know they can't have him.

Fang enveloped Max in a hug and said, "It's alright. You didn't know."

"I feel awful," she sobbed. "How could you want to marry me even after I did all of that to you?"

Fang let go of her and grabbed a tissue.

He wrote: _Because I love you._

Then on the same tissue, Max wrote: _That's great, because I love you too._

**Yo! 'Sup?**

**Well I decided to make it into a two-shot, so yay! I just really wanted to show the progression of their relationship...yeah.**

**So that's it for this story. Check out my others if you haven't already please!**

**Please review! Thanks so much!**

**Peace,**

**~UnicornsBubblesAWESOMENESS.**


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